New house

A week ago Saturday we moved to our new house. We've had a week and have been able to unpack most everything except a few less important boxes of garage stuff and office stuff. I thought I'd post some before/after shots of the house. We've still got to get some curtains and hang more pictures, but overall we're happy to be pretty much moved in.

Before:

We sold the above ground pool on craigslist to save our little climbers from drowning. We'll put some after pictures of the back yard in Ryan's b-day post.

The previous owners had some "interesting" color choices. There were the turquoise accents, but even more exciting was that arch that was turquoise, then sponged with coral paint on top. The epitome of ugly. We repainted.

 

 

After:

The arch looks much better in a light tan color.

Before:

 

After:

 Living room/formal dining room.

We hit our head often on that chandelier. Maybe we need to get a table to put there.

Upstairs I didn't take any before pictures, but this is what it looks like now. From left to right is Ryan's room, the bathroom, the girls' room, and the playroom.

I LOVE having a playroom. Most of the toys stay in there instead of all over the house and if when it's a disaster (every day by the end of the day) I can just close the door on it. 

Rachel really wanted pink in her room, so she got it.

 It's a bit of pink overkill, but she likes it. I think I'll repaint their dresser all white, though, to offset the pink a little.

Ryan's room:

Master bedroom:

 

It's a little brighter blue than I'd planned, but I'm getting used to it. With some stuff on the wall I think it'll be even better.

Master bath:

 Office:

 This is the last room to finish unpacking. I'm not sure how we fit everything that was on that desk into the desk before. It fills 4 boxes. We'll see if I can fit everything back in again.

Overall we're really happy with the house. It's nice having more storage room and more rooms in general. Of course I may change my tune once I realize how much more I have to keep clean. But that's what kids are for, right? ;)

Crazies

We had a solid two weeks of sickness that is finally over. Hallelujah! And now the sitting around and waiting period of house-buying is finally over. We close today on our new house, then we have 2 1/2 weeks to get out of our current house before it closes. So tomorrow the painting and cleaning and moving of small stuff begins, then a week from tomorrow is the big moving day. I figured I'd better get these pictures on the blog now or it may be a while before I get around to it. 

Ryan, ever the climber, at it again. Yesterday he actually broke the side of the dollhouse that is closer to the camera here. See how it's already bent, and missing one of its support legs? That's from Annie's climbing shenanigans. Ryan finished off the job.

 

The girls being silly:

 

 

 

You can't see it very well, but Ryan's feet are both on the seat of his little car as he crouches down on top. Not the safest way to ride the car, but he hasn't been hurt too badly yet, so he keeps doing it.

 

These next two pictures were one after another and I thought it was funny that both Ryan and Annie had the nearly same face going on.

 

 Annie has taken to eating standing up, using her chair as her table occasionally. She left her oatmeal there the other day and Ryan was happy to find it and take care of it for her.

The crib is apparently the hot new play place. At least once a day Rachel climbs in there, or Annie asks to be put in there. Apparently being in a cage is fun.

One more of the doll house climber:

And Annie with her lovely "helmet."

Rodeo Snow

This week was Rodeo Break. Here in Tucson instead of getting President's Day off, the schools all get two days off for Rodeo Break when the Rodeo is in town the last full week of February. Having lived here all my school years and then some, I've never been to the rodeo. Every year I say maybe next year. And really, maybe we will make it next year. If it doesn't snow.

Tuesday at preschool they had a rodeo day. Here's cowgirl Rachel with her horse she made at preschool:

Notice how everyone is in short sleeves. It was up at or near 70 degrees Tuesday.

Wednesday we got this:

An Arizona blizzard. Or what most of the country would call snow flurries. Rachel had a blast. Annie liked the snow on the ground, but not falling into her face. While the snow was actually coming down she mostly just wanted me to hold her.

 

They let the kids at the school behind our house out to run around in the snow, figuring, I'm sure, that there was no point in trying to keep their attention on anything school-related with white stuff falling from the sky. Besides, you never know how long snow will last here. This snow was melted within a couple hours of it falling.

Annie liked seeing the snow splat on the cement.

 

Later in the afternoon the snow started falling again, so after dinner the girls headed back out to play some more. Rachel made a snow man.

Since we live in Arizona and the snow only sticks once every 3 or 4 years, we don't really have snow gear. Every time the girls came in they were soaked. Though after the first time we did start wrapping their shoes in plastic. I didn't think they'd appreciate Saran Wrapped legs and arms, so we left it with the feet. It kept their feet dry, and we just went through all their pants in two days instead of two weeks.

Luckily we do have a sled. Um. I mean a laundry basket. It worked just fine for "sledding" in our flat backyard. Ryan and Annie both got a kick out of it. Rachel was too busy building her snowman to worry about such things.

 

 

It snowed some in the night, as well, so the girls woke up and headed back out for some more fun.
 

It was much warmer on Thursday, though it still took a while for the snow to melt. The snow in our garden, which is completely shaded at this time of year, lasted well into the afternoon. It's always nice to get a good snow. And nice that it doesn't stick around too long, too. Just one reason I love Arizona.

And apparently our new blog tradition is to include at least on picture of Ryan practicing his climbing skillz. 

I suppose they kind of look like brother and sister, huh? :)

Sickies, snow, and Valentine's Day

Last week a cold spell came back to Tucson. Annie took the opportunity to steal Rachel's boots. It was so funny to see her trying to walk in them. Feet apart, waddling like a penguin.

Rachel had been sick over the weekend with a fever but no other symptoms, except a tummy ache when the fever would spike. Monday afternoon it started snowing, and since that happens so rarely in Tucson--maybe once a year--we bundled up and headed outside. The girls had fun trying to catch some snowflakes on their tongues. The snow only lasted a few minutes, then we were back inside to warm up and treat Rachel like a sickie that needed rest, not running around out in the cold.

That night Rachel and I, and a little later Annie, too, all decided we had to get rid of everything we'd eaten that day. Thank goodness for Jacob. He took care of the girls puking all night and let me lay in peace and throw up in peace throughout the night. By morning we were all exhausted, but our stomachs had calmed a bit, thankfully. We spent most of the day watching movies, or playing on the iPad. A true sick day for all. :)

At lunch time I got everyone some mild food, then went and put Annie and Ryan down for a nap. A little later I thought I ought to go check on Rachel. I walked through the house twice and couldn't find her anywhere and she didn't respond to me calling out to her. I kind of got a little worried there for a minute. Until I remembered hearing a sigh in the kitchen a little while before that I thought had come through the baby monitor. Turns out it was Rachel. She was too tired to finish her lunch, I guess.

 That made twice in 4 days that she had taken a nap, which she hasn't done since she was 3. That's when you know she's really sick. Luckily that was the last day of sickness for everyone for a while.

Valentine's day came and the girls were really excited to get cups that lit up and their own heart balloons.
 

The best thing, though, was Ryan's light spinner thing that he got. The girls loved playing with it, and whenever Ryan sees the lights he says "ooooooh." You can see his little lips puckering to say it in this picture:

 

And one more Ryan climbing picture. He's following in his sisters' footsteps realizing how fun this little table can be to climb and play on.

 

More of Ryan

Hard to believe, but Ryan will be 11 months old on Monday. That means he's just a month away from turning 1. Though anytime Annie meets someone she tells them, "I Annie. I am two. Rachel's five. And Ryan's one." Close enough. He's getting braver about taking steps on his own, but still doesn't put too many together before he falls over and goes back to his faster mode of movement: crawling.

He likes climbing and has no fear of falling. At the park he crawls as fast as he can to the slide and dives head-first down with a huge smile on his face. Here are a few pics of our little climber. 

Gotta love the pose there.

He's a smiley kid.

 

As soon as the dishwasher opens Ryan beelines it for the dishwasher. If we forget to close it when he's in another room and he comes in and notices it, this is what we find:

 

Today the kids were outside playing while I was making dinner. We had watered the plants, then I left them out there because they were playing nicely and Ryan wasn't even trying to eat the dirt. I kept peeking out to make sure Ryan was staying away from the garden where he finds his favorite dirt to eat, and he was. But one time when I peeked out I noticed Annie close to him with a stick rubbing on his hair. When I went to investigate further I found that she had been using the stick to dig up some mud, then decorate Ryan with it. And he liked it.

"Huh?"

"Ooh, a camera! Let me get my grubby paws on that thing!"

Dinner prep was put on hold while both Annie and Ryan got an early bath. At least they were playing nicely together for a little while. A nice change from Annie's constant torturing of the poor boy.

Rachel's camcorder

Here is a selection of some of the less blurry pictures Rachel has taken since she was gifted with our old camcorder.

She really enjoyed the fact that the viewfinder turned around so she could see herself. She has MANY videos taken of herself with that cool feature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are LOTS of random shots. The ones with people in them are in the minority. Most are like the blurry picture of Ryans walking toy above, or of some of Rachel's favorite toys (like Shasta, the dog, or the My Little Pony).

Rachel has a TON of videos of herself and her animals and even movies that she was watching. Here are a few to see the budding actress/filmmaker.

She captures the "important" stuff. I'm sure we'll be glad in 15 years to have these to look back at and laugh.